


Free From Disguise

by Merricat Kiernan (rosa_himmelblau)



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [41]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27351727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/Merricat%20Kiernan
Summary: Vinnie's home, but nothing's settled.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713
Kudos: 1





	Free From Disguise

Vinnie slouched in the big, soft, leather chair, feeling as boneless and pointless as the Sunday afternoon itself, alternately looking out the window and over at Sonny, who was reading the paper. Yeah, no more games. That'll be the day. He'd been back for a week and neither he nor Sonny had yet to speak a word to each other. When he'd gotten back, Sonny had been out. When Sonny had returned, his eyes had flickered over Vinnie, who was lying on the sofa watching TV, but he'd said nothing. The look was enough; it was like being grazed by thorns.

It had been a Monday night, so they'd gone out to dinner—that is, Sonny had gone out, and Vinnie had tagged along. They ate, Sonny paid, they went home and went to bed. Sonny didn't talk to him, and he didn't touch him; Vinnie went to bed alone and woke up the same way. They got up the next morning and went out to the gym, where they punched each other with a formality that bordered on the ceremonial. It wasn't what Vinnie would have really called a work-out. He wasn't sure what he would have called it.

They lived in the same apartment, they sat next to each other in the car, but Sonny treated him like poison ivy. They took polite turns in the bathroom, they moved around each other in the kitchen as if they were both living alone in a haunted house, ignoring the ghosts. And Vinnie was bewildered.

Vinnie had expected Sonny to be pissed off . . . though, given time to think about it, he couldn't have said why he was expecting it. What did Sonny have to be pissed off about? He was the one who'd been dumped like a disappointing blind date. He didn't know why Sonny wasn't talking to him; he realized that he wasn't talking to Sonny because he was furious with him, and he didn't want to end up punching it out. Again.

"So, what do you want?" Vinnie asked himself. Sonny glanced up from the financial page, said nothing, went back to it. He'd gotten very good at recognizing when Vinnie was talking to himself, and he had no interest in getting in the middle of an argument between Vinnie and himself. Nobody ever said Sonny Steelgrave was stupid.

_What I want is to talk it out, but that's not going to happen. I don't know how to go at this in a 'healthy, constructive, non-confrontational manner'; my blood wants a battle, a victory. I wanna hammer his head against the wall until—_

"Until none of it happened. I wanna win that fight at the theatre, I wanna change everything, I want—" The futility of it undercut his anger, sapping his energy.

Sonny was looking at Vinnie from around his paper, his silence filled with portents and menace. He had only so much patience with "existential bullshit."

 _Fine. Let's talk about the here and now._ "You ditched me," Vinnie said quietly, and Sonny went back to his paper. "First you lied to me to get me to New York—there wasn't any guy you were planning to kill—"

"I never said anything about planning to kill anyone," Sonny protested, but he did it with unmistakable pleasure. "You just assumed it."

"Which you knew I would."

"Which I knew you would, yeah."

"You ditched me, then you came home like nothing happened. You were on the very next plane, weren't you?"

Sonny put down his paper and smiled at Vinnie. It wasn't a nice smile. "I was at the airport while you were still on the subway." His smile, his words, the tone of his voice, were the blow— _You're nothing, you mean nothing to me._ They were meant to hurt, meant to inflame, but Vinnie watched the fire from a distance, didn't even feel the heat of it. "What did you think I was going to do, wait around while you and Frank sat and talked over old times?" Maybe this was how they were going to beat each other up now—with words instead of fists. Maybe it was an improvement, but Vinnie had his doubts. He noticed though, that Sonny said Frank's name in the same old way. And after a second, Sonny added, "What else did you need me for anyway? I gave you what you wanted."

"What I wanted? Who the hell told you that was what I wanted?"

"You did." Sonny had the paper in front of his face again. "I can't fucking count how many times." He wadded up the paper threw it across the room, then he looked at Vinnie, meeting his eyes briefly before looking away. "Over 'n' over you told me how much you wanted to go home, how much you wanted to see **Frank** —" he emphasized Frank's name in an especially nasty way, paused, took a deep breath. "So, I took you home, I got you Frank." He shrugged. "I don't know what you're complaining about, or what you were expecting. Didn't I always get you whatever you wanted? If you don't wanna be here, what the hell did you come back for?"

"Got me what I wanted? What are you talking about?"

Again Sonny's eyes met his, but this time he held the gaze with a righteous anger. "What about Kiki Vanos? You got any idea how close me popping him came to queering that deal with the Zhoratsos? But Kiki knew you were after him, and he'd've disappeared in a flash, right after he picked up his money for setting things up. He thought he was safe 'til then—he figured I'd never let you have him while I still needed him." Sonny shrugged helplessly. "But hey, what's a million dollars, more or less, right?" He stood up, moving around the room, trying to burn off—anger? Frustration? "And what about that blonde in the counting room you had a hard-on for—what the hell was her name? Do you even remember? And how about me risking my neck how many times now, trying to get your head screwed back on straight?" He'd picked up a small sunset-colored vase Vinnie had bought in New Mexico, and was caressing it with careless fury, like a small animal he might kill at any moment—or might simply release.

"What?" Vinnie asked. "What are you talking about?" He remembered the blonde in the counting room—and he remembered her name, it was Joanne. He'd been attracted to her, but he hadn't said anything to Sonny—still, suddenly there was a swanky dinner arranged in one of the private dining rooms downstairs, and a sudden cancellation by Sonny and his date. Yeah, Sonny had arranged it all—he'd arranged for most of the dates Vinnie'd had during that time, so why was he pissed-off about this one?

"Your stepfather says you're fucked up, you need to see me, I get on a plane. He's gonna lock you up in a rubber room, I get you out. Aiuppo wants me dead now, even if he has promised not to do it—and that promise's probably only good as long as you're breathing. You get hit by a bus one morning and two weeks later, I find myself in small pieces all over the city. You wanna see McPike, I get you McPike. Of course, he fucking hates my guts, and now he knows I'm alive, so who knows whether your guys are looking for me, or maybe he's doing it himself, a little spec work for Aiuppo, but I got him for you! Hell, just going to the East Coast is dangerous—I was pretty well known there. You sure knew who I was." Vinnie wasn't looking at him; the vase shattering against the wall made him jump. "I don't know what you want, I don't know what the hell you're doing here, but from now on, anything you want, write it nice and neat and mail it off to the North Pole!" A second later the front door slammed.

"What'm I doing here?" Vinnie hauled himself up out of the chair and walked to the window.

"Listening to my heart break," he told himself. "That's what I'm doing here." 

The deal with Joanne had happened not a month after he and Sonny had first—whatever they had done. Kissing, heavy breathing, fumbling around was all, though it was more than enough to get them both off—and get them both killed, if anybody had found out. They couldn't keep their hands off each other though.

"Liar," Vinnie told himself, the walls, the window pane. "You're a liar. Sonny couldn't keep his hands off you, and you liked it. Hell, you loved it, it felt so good being wanted that hard—

"Shut up," he whispered. Bad enough it was true; did he have to say the words out loud? But it was true. Sonny had wanted him like crazy, and in the moment he'd loved the way that made him feel. Afterward, the guilt ate at him. He did love Sonny—he hadn't been faking anything. But he knew he didn't feel about Sonny the way Sonny felt about him, and he'd always told himself Sonny believed he did. Now he was starting to wonder.

That month's respite hadn't made him feel any better. Sonny hadn't touched him, but it didn't matter. Sonny was always touching him whether he was or not.

It had amazed Vinnie that no one else had seen what was going on. Besotted, Sonny's generosity became equally love-struck—extravagant, excessive. Joanne had been a part of that. He knew I wanted her, so he got her for me. When it had just been an arranged date, that had seemed fine. Now, with the echo of Sonny's pain still in the room, it seemed cruel. It was wonderful to be loved that foolishly, and it was terrible.

_So, what'm I doing here? The same thing I've been doing all along—letting Sonny love me._

_It isn't enough._

Vinnie opened one of the balcony doors, leaning against the doorjamb and lighting a cigarette. Roger had asked him if he was happy. Frank had told him he could fly. He had a key to a safety deposit box containing a not-so-small fortune. He had his own car. Why had he come back to Sonny?

"Sonny loves me."

_It isn't enough._

_It isn't supposed to be enough. At least I get why Sonny's pissed-off. Instead of doing the smart thing and disappearing after he left me in New York, he came back here, where he knew I could find him._ "I can't be here just because Sonny loves me. Jeez, no wonder I've been depressed—look what a complete asshole I've been."

It wasn't just that Sonny loved him. It never had been. He'd always loved Sonny—Vinnie wasn't sure it was possible to have Sonny love you and not love him back, it would be like having the sun shine on you without feeling heat—but his feelings were more moderated, more sensible. _If you could call falling for the mark either moderate or sensible,_ Frank's voice said. "I just had one better reason than he did not to let myself fall head-over-heels, and I've been clinging to it ever since. It's long gone, and I'm still clinging to it. I keep telling myself someone has to be the sensible one in this relationship—yeah, and look how well that's turned out.

"And hey, let's be honest here—another good reason not to love me wouldn't've stopped Sonny."

_Fine. So, you know how to regulate your emotions better than Sonny did. Give the man a cigar._

He put out his cigarette, closed and locked the balcony door, and went into the bathroom.

He stood staring at himself in the mirror. _When Susan looked at me, she saw a house with a white picket fence and our kids playing in the yard. She saw the perfect home she'd always wanted, the one thing Mel couldn't give her, the one thing she couldn't get for herself as long as she was with Mel. What did Sonny see?_

_Whatever it is, he's still seeing it._

"The past doesn't matter, forget the past. There's only one thing that matters, and that's this: is my future here with Sonny, or isn't it? If it isn't, I need to get out of here. If it is—"

_Well, that one's easy. If I'm gonna stay with Sonny, this half-in, half-out detachment is unhealthy for both of us. I gotta stop being moderate._

_Besides everything else, I've been stupid. I forgot the one thing I've always known about Sonny—he's not that complicated! I had him down pat in a week! He won't let himself believe my behavior isn't in response to him. I get depressed and apathetic, it must be him I'm not interested in. I worry about Frank, it must meant I want Frank—instead of him._

But now that he'd thought of the question, Vinnie wanted an answer to it—what did Sonny see when he looked at him?

The answer was obvious; Vinnie was looking at it. What Sonny saw was a reflection of himself.

It explained everything—particularly, it explained why he went so crazy when he felt he didn't know who Vinnie was, or when he thought Vinnie was hiding things from him. It wasn't jealousy per se; it was blind panic. And really, that made a lot of sense. Vinnie thought of the famous mirror scene in whichever Marx Brothers movie it was, where Harpo was dressed as Groucho, pretending to be his reflection until at last he goofed up. That was very close to not only what Vinnie had done, but he had been trained to do. It was what worked. And in real life, who wouldn't freak out if their reflection began doing things they not only weren't doing, but couldn't even understand?

It was OCB training. Get close to the mark by being like him, by sharing his interests. And with Sonny, Vinnie had hardly had to pretend at all, because in so many ways they were alike; they'd grown up in the same place, had the same heritage; when you said six o'clock Sunday morning, they both felt an immediate pang of, oh, fuck, do I hafta get up for Mass? even after all these years of sleeping in.

So if Vinnie was a fag, what did that make Sonny? (This question had nothing to do with Vinnie sucking Sonny's cock; Vinnie sucking anybody's cock would beg the same question. In fact, Vinnie sucking anybody else's cock would be much, much worse.) That was why Vinnie couldn't be a fag.

And it explained some of the stupid things Vinnie had done in the last few years, too. Specifically, it explained the ridiculous way he'd been acting, as though he didn't have a brain in his head or an opinion of his own. In Quantico he'd learned to be as much like the mark as possible, to facilitate closeness. Vinnie had done that, amping up the similarities he and Sonny already had. The similarities had been real, but Vinnie had enhanced them.

That was then, in the before. In the now, Vinnie had found himself feeling artificial whenever he agreed with Sonny, even when he actually did agree with him, while at the same time he was afraid to disagree with Sonny too much, for fear of Sonny dumping him. What he'd done without realizing it was turn submissive, his passivity the flip side of Sonny's very active nature, and also a way of being easy to get along with and therefore (he hoped) less likely to be dumped. See? He wasn't being hard to get along with, and he wasn't pretending to be like Sonny, either.

Except that wasn't who he was. He was still pretending; he was just pretending to be someone with no opinions, someone nobody wanted him to be. Vinnie shook his head. "What a maroon."

Sonny was standing in the bathroom doorway, watching him with the resigned, mystified "what are you doing now?" expression he'd worn a lot in the last few years. He didn't ask, though. "Get out," he ordered, nodding at the doorway.

"Of the bathroom, or the apartment?" Vinnie asked, and Sonny rolled his eyes.

"The bathroom, c'm'on, I gotta use it."

Vinnie didn’t point out that this was **his** bathroom, that Sonny had one of his own; he left the room, leaning against the door after Sonny had slammed it shut. He stood there a few minutes, thinking that standing talking to himself in the mirror was really not a good way to stay on Sonny's good side. _You're not trying to stay on his good side, remember?_ He called loudly through the door, "Why don't you use your own bathroom?"

Sonny didn't answer.

Vinnie didn't really care; it was just Sonny being Sonny. But there was something he wanted to know. "Why did you come back?"

"I live here!"

"So do I."

"Yeah, but my name's on the lease." The toilet flushed, and in a moment the door opened, causing Vinnie to lose his balance a bit and stumble into Sonny, who grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him.

"I didn't mean today. I meant—"

"I know what you meant. I'm tired of moving, I wasn't going to disrupt Tracy's life again because of you, and I like it here OK." He pushed Vinnie out of the way and walked around him, to the living room.

They didn't talk the rest of the day. Sonny scrambled some eggs for dinner, which wasn't Vinnie's first choice, but he didn't complain. They ate, then Sonny went out, not saying where he was going. Vinnie shut out the lights and went to sit on the dark balcony where he could smoke, waiting, the sliding door open.

Anybody watching them from the outside would think they were doing it, assuming they were watching at a time he and Sonny weren't trying to kill each other. Roger had thought so. The way Sonny looked at him alone was reason enough to think so—there was lust in his eyes, and hunger, and yearning. And Sonny loved to touch him, was always pulling his hair, rubbing his shoulders, stroking his face, leaning against him. (That was completely besides punching him in the face, the stomach, and everywhere in between.) Sonny seemed to always have his hands on him. Sometimes Vinnie thought it was something he did to remind himself Vinnie was really there, but maybe that was too complicated. Maybe it was as simple as, he liked to touch Vinnie, so he did.

And it was true that sometimes all that touching spilled over into sex. But, really, not very often.

Before—and "before" always meant before the Rialto, before Sonny died, before everything changed—before, they had—

Vinnie wasn't sure what you would have called it. Fooled around, maybe; made out. Sonny flirted with him, he touched him, he—several times he kissed him, leaning forward to taste his lips, then leaning back with a look on his face that dared Vinnie to do what "everybody" knew he should do: punch him in the mouth—or dared Vinnie to kiss him.

Vinnie never did either. He never made the first move, but he never leaned away, either. He always leaned in, parted his lips to be kissed. And when Sonny pretended nothing had happened, he pretended too.

This was nothing like the way Sonny kissed women; Vinnie had had plenty of opportunity of observe Sonny's technique, which was more—

—less—

—different. Just different. If kissing a woman was like eating candy, Sonny kissing Vinnie was like stealing candy.

And Vinnie liked being stolen.

And exactly five times things had gone further, and further was them fumbling around in the dark on Vinnie's sofa, both of them coming in their pants, though Vinnie had also come in Sonny's hand, and Sonny had come in his. It was not the stuff that epic romances were made of, nor would it ever make the Kama Sutra's top ten. Still, it seemed to defuse the rising tension, play out some excess energy. And like the kisses, they'd neither of them ever said a word about it.

If anyone had asked him, Vinnie would have admitted to being . . . less than a ten on that scale of Kinsey's. Like maybe more of an eight. And a half. (This was a concession Sonny would never make, not under any circumstances.) There were certain men, at certain times that Vinnie could imagine himself having sex with, and one he had had sex with, on more than one occasion. And then there was Sonny, who looked at him sometimes like—

Like he was in love with him. Which was, of course, the case, though there was more than that. Sonny's feelings for him weren't complicated, exactly, but they were tangled. He wanted Vinnie to—the best way to put it was the most childish-sounding: he wanted Vinnie to like him best. For reasons Vinnie would probably never understand, Sonny had seen him as a reflection of himself, the one person in the world who really got him, who would always be on his side. Sonny thought of him as his, his—his. Just his. And what he wanted from Vinnie was—

_Well, I ain't greedy, baby,  
All I want is all you got—_

Yeah, some old Presley song that, not surprisingly, Sonny often sang under his breath. Full devotion, rapt attention—sex was in there, but it wasn't the point, it was just one more thing that Sonny wanted from Vinnie, one more thing he didn't want to share about Vinnie, and Vinnie—

_Yeah, and what about Vinnie? Vinnie's a selfish asshole who wants Sonny to keep on wanting him. Vinnie's a guy who could go the rest of his life without ever being kissed by Sonny again—until Sonny kisses him again, and then it's like putting a match to a fuse. And Vinnie's a guy who wants to be able to kiss first._

It was weird, because he would have done more back then, would have blown Sonny, if Sonny had expressed an interest because—yeah, because he wanted to. Because he liked Sonny, cared about Sonny, and Sonny made him . . . itchy. In a good way. He'd kept expecting Sonny to ask, to tell him to get down on his knees, but it never happened. And while he could let Sonny steal kisses and he could kiss back with appropriate enthusiasm, and while Sonny could push Vinnie down on the sofa and stick his hand down Vinnie's pants and that could be very nice, Vinnie couldn't initiate anything. Because it's one thing if the boss wants to play a little on the other side and it's a whole other thing if the hired help does. If Vinnie had offered Sonny a blow-job, that might just make Vinnie a fag. And of course if he was a fag, he couldn't be Sonny's right hand (don't even think about the jokes), he couldn't be security, he couldn't be trusted to bash a guy's head in with a baseball bat, should the occasion arise. Sonny knew that, and Vinnie knew it. Everyone knew it.

And even now in this different life, when there was very little chance that it would be necessary to watch Sonny's back, offering to suck Sonny's dick had still been dicey. Not that he thought Sonny would whack him, but—

_He might've stopped wanting me. Well, he might've stopped respecting me, which even if it doesn't precisely mean stop wanting me, it comes pretty close._

But that wasn't what happened. What happened, Vinnie figured out, was that he'd shaken Sonny's belief in who he was—again. He'd gone from being Vinnie who let Sonny kiss him (whatever that meant) to Vinnie who wanted to suck his cock (and was there anybody who didn't know what that meant?) and except that after that he was sucking Sonny's cock every morning, nothing had changed any. _Yeah. It's because no matter how old school Sonny is, there's always this one thing that outweighs everything else: he loves you._

_I got confused because I had to play like Sonny was in charge, but that's never really been true; it wasn't true when I was working for him, and it isn't true now. I'm the one that's got all the power, only I'm not using it, and that's messing things up. So, now I've got to figure out what to do next._

It was getting chilly on the balcony, and Vinnie had chain-smoked through his whole pack of Pall Malls, so there wasn't much reason to stay out there. He went back into the apartment and turned on some lights. It was nearly two in the morning.

Vinnie stood for a minute, debating the relative merits of making a sandwich or just going to bed. He was tired, but not too tired to eat; on the other hand, he wanted to talk to Sonny, but that could take a while. If Sonny came home while he was eating, Vinnie knew he'd start something—he wouldn't be able to help himself. Better to just go to bed and do this in the morning.

Only when Vinnie got up in the morning, Sonny still wasn't there.

Vinnie was worried, but not very. Sonny had not come home before, had stayed away overnight a few times when they'd been on the outs. It wasn't usually after a big blow-up, it was usually after a long cold spell. And as before, Vinnie wondered what would happen if something really had happened to Sonny. He assumed their home number was Sonny's emergency contact information, so if there really had been an accident, Vinnie probably would have gotten a call. Wherever he was, he was probably there because he wanted to be. And if he didn't come back, there wasn't much Vinnie could do about it.

His car was still in its spot—or back, Sonny could have gone and brought it back. _One thing I know he didn't do was walk anyplace, since he hates walking in San Francisco. The hills annoy him, probably because they aren't hills in New York. And if there were hills in New York, these hills would still bug him because they couldn't possibly be as good as New York's hills._

_This isn't getting you anywhere._

Vinnie couldn't call the police, and not just because not enough time had passed. If the police got serious about finding Sonny, they'd start checking outside the state, and then—

He couldn't call the police.

It was that frustration that made him call the credit card companies, to see if there was any activity on Sonny's credit cards. Nothing on the one they shared, but Vinnie knew where he kept his payment stubs and he called the others. One of them had a charge from the bar down the street, made shortly after he'd left the apartment. The other had a plane ticket charged on it.

Vinnie asked the woman at Bank of America to double check that, which she did, and then he asked her where the ticket was to, but she didn't know. She did tell him the airline though, and the time the charge was made, and the amount.

That should make it easy to figure out where the plane was going, and when it had left. Vinnie went to the room Sonny used as an office and turned on his computer. He was trying to think clearly and not let his anger take over, but it wasn't easy. _He walked out without a word and got on a plane? To where? Did something happen? Somebody recognize him for real this time?_

The airline had a flight that had left San Francisco at eleven-fifty-five p.m. and arrived in Rome at one-twenty-five p.m. That was the Rome in Italy, not the one in Georgia, or Indiana, or even New York. Sonny had, without a word, booked a first-class reservation on a plane to Italy. Vinnie got himself transferred to the reservations desk.

He had to change the reservation, though. In the middle of packing he realized he didn't have a passport, and he had no idea how long it took to get one.

Vincent Michael Terranova, OCB agent and professional good guy, had had a passport because he'd once worked on an ad hoc basis for the CIA, sort of. But all he'd had to do to get that passport was smile for the camera and sign his name. Frank, or somebody, had done the rest, and presto! there was a passport with his name on it.

Unfortunately, Vincent Michael Terranova was dead, or the next best thing, so his passport wouldn't do any good, even if it wasn't back at the house in Brooklyn, or packed up with his stuff in Rudy's attic in Phoenix, or in some storage facility somewhere. Or maybe it was someplace else, who knew where, maybe Frank had it as a memento. Maybe it had gone down some official incinerator for the identification of missing and dead FBI agents. It didn't matter. It wasn't like he could use it anyway.

Fortunately Sonny had gotten him more than just a driver's license when he'd gotten him new I.D. Sonny had gone the whole route: birth certificate, social security card, even a would-you-believe-it? voter's registration card. Who in the world would buy a fake voter's registration card? Sonny, and probably for that very reason. Who would expect a phony voter's registration card? It was expired, but if Vinnie had wanted to, he could have voted in Youngstown, Ohio. Getting a passport wouldn't be difficult, but it was going to take two weeks, and that was a rush job.

_Two weeks. Sonny could be in Australia in two weeks, Sonny could be—_

_Sonny could be somebody else in two weeks, if he wanted to be, with a voter's registration card and everything._

But there was nothing else Vinnie could do. He paid the extra fee for over-nighting everything out and the passport back to him, and he waited, impatiently. Sleep was difficult—imaginary conversations with Sonny played every time he closed his eyes, so for most of the time he slept slumped on the sofa with the TV on, sleeping only when his eyes wouldn't stay open any more.

Days, he found himself doing ridiculous things—washing Sonny's car, for instance. It was a job he sort of enjoyed, but why he was washing Sonny's car instead of his own, he didn't know. Rearranging the furniture in the living room. Painting his bedroom a shade of blue that would have been far too dark in any room that didn't get the kind of east light his did. Going to the movies, going to the park, going to the zoo.

The zoo? Yeah, well, he was running out of places to go to divert his mind.

Every morning, first thing, he called the credit card company to see what new charges showed up on the card, then he called the places those charges were made, to follow up on just what the charges were for. Sonny was still in Rome, staying in a four-star hotel, and eating very expensive meals. He'd rented a car—and seemed to be doing a great deal of driving, since he charged gas every day. Vinnie kept picturing him in a black convertible with a blonde in the seat next to him, even though Sonny didn't particularly go for blondes. Speaking nothing but Italian—

"Why should I care what language he's speaking?" Vinnie asked himself after this scenario had played itself out in his mind, and he didn't know, but it bugged him. It bugged him that he was stewing over this while Sonny was out driving around the Italian countryside and boffing beautiful Italian girls. "He probably picked up a stewardess on the plane, a little one-stop shopping." Well, when Vinnie found him, the first thing he was going to do was punch him in the face a few times. After that maybe they would talk, and maybe Vinnie would walk, but either way, there would be punching. It was the one language he was sure Sonny really understood.

His passport arrived thirteen days later. Vinnie chose to take this as a good omen, that it arrived early, rather than think about it being thirteen days. Who really believed in that whole unlucky number thirteen anyway, except guys who owned hotels and pretended that floor didn't exist?

Before he left for the airport, standing looking around to see if there was something he'd forgotten, Vinnie thought of something. He went in and short-sheeted Sonny's bed. It was, he thought, the least he could do.

The flight was long and exhausting and Vinnie scratched his original plan of getting off the plane, renting a car, and tracking Sonny down, and came up with a better plan: getting off the plane, taking a cab to the nearest hotel, and sleeping for twelve hours. He wanted to be well-rested when he beat the hell out of Sonny, the better to savor the experience.

He was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep, so he got some food first. His first thought— _Thank God McDonald's is everywhere,_ was immediately followed by, _Sonny would kill me if he knew I was eating at McDonald's in Rome._ But he was tired and didn't feel like trying something unknown, even if it was somebody's mama's recipe—it would be somebody he didn't know, and who knew how this unknown somebody's mama cooked.

McDonald's was a mistake. How in the hell could people who knew so much about food manage to do such disservice to fast food? Probably considered it an improvement, but Vinnie was disappointed. There was nothing that tasted familiar at all. Sonny would tell him it was poetic justice, if Sonny went around using phrases like "poetic justice." More like, "that's what you get." If he'd thought about it, Vinnie should have expected it—if the shakes tasted different from state to state, why wouldn't the food taste different on a whole different continent?

It filled his stomach, anyway. Vinnie put a Do Not Disturb sign on his door, left his clothes in a pile on the floor and climbed between the sheets.

It was more like fourteen hours that Vinnie slept, waking up with the bright afternoon sunlight in his eyes, so hungry he'd have been willing to go back to McDonald's.

It didn't come to that. He called room service instead, ordered a big, late breakfast, then got dressed and took a taxi to Sonny's hotel.

His Italian wasn't as good as Sonny's—his parents hadn't spoken it at home—but it was good enough to understand when the desk clerk told him that the guest he'd asked for had checked out the day before. No, he hadn't said where he was going.

Vinnie exchanged some money, got change, and went to a pay phone where he was reminded that Bank of America's eight-hundred number was only toll-free in the US. Vinnie went back to the desk and bought a map, then took a cab back to his hotel. It wasn't as nice as Sonny's, but it had a phone, and his things were there.

Bank of America reported no recent charges on the card. Vinnie called American Express, who also reported no charges. MasterCard had a charge for gas early yesterday afternoon. So Sonny had checked out and driven away. Vinnie knew from experience that Sonny could drive a good twelve hours without stopping for more than a quick pit stop or two along the way. Palermo was only about a hundred miles away, and Palermo was where Sonny's brother lived. It only made sense that he'd want to see his only family while he was so close.

_Yeah, and if I'm wrong? I start driving south only to find out Sonny really decided to go on a pilgrimage north, to pay homage to Switzerland, the land of the bankers. In some way those guys are more his family than Dom is._

Vinnie spent the morning being annoyed by the beauty of Basilica di San Pietro. Well, really he was annoyed at Sonny, but the Basilica would do fine for a stand-in. He wanted to enjoy it, but all he could feel was an irritation that was like an itch he couldn't reach.

He found a place for lunch that was cool and dark. He had no trouble reading the menu, but the food he got was like nothing anybody's mama he knew made; he'd never understood before how food could be described as baroque. Still, once he got past the unfamiliarity, it was fine.

After that, Vinnie went to a bookstore that sold paperbacks in English and bought himself a couple of John Grisham novels he didn't really want to read, but which would be better than wandering the streets. Then he picked up a bottle of grappa and went back to his hotel room. He called all three credit card companies, found there had been no activity on any of them. After that Vinnie got comfortable on his bed, opened his book and his bottle, and started passing the time. He discovered that John Grisham was better when you were buzzed.

At some point he fell asleep, which was good, and when he woke up he had an idea, which was better.

Sonny had known he was coming. Sonny was doing the same thing he was, he was checking the credit card activity, and now he knew where Vinnie was staying. When Vinnie rented a car to follow, Sonny would know that, too. But Vinnie had a way around that: he could go to the American Express office and get a cash advance, buy some travelers' checks. That would keep Sonny from being able to track his moves.

It was a good idea, but it had one major drawback: Sonny would figure it out pretty fast, and there was nothing stopping him from doing the same thing. Vinnie needed to think about that some more.

It was late, but room service was still serving dinner. Vinnie ordered a light meal, read until he got sleepy, then went to bed.

Morning. Phone calls to the credit card companies. Sonny had a hotel room in Palermo. And Vinnie had fine-tuned his idea.

First he went to the American Express office and got some travelers' checks. Then he went to a travel agent and got himself a flight to Palermo. It would only take an hour, and he paid for it with the travelers' checks. And then Vinnie rented a car and parked it in the hotel lot. Sonny would be expecting him to take the same hundred-mile, who-knew-how-many-hours drive he had, while Vinnie would be there before evening.

_And if he sees you're on your way and disappears? Or just starts using cash so you can't trace him?_

_He's not going to do that,_ Vinnie kept telling himself. _He's not going to do it because this is not like the last time you chased him: he wants you to follow him. If he didn't, he wouldn't be using credit cards at all, he'd have taken some of that cash out of his big, bulging bank account and I wouldn't have any idea where he is now. We're playing a game, and it's not hide-and-seek, or blind-man's-bluff, it's prove-you-love-me. OK, Sonny, you wanna play, I'll play. I'm coming after you._

Sonny had checked out of the hotel. No, he had not left any forwarding information. Pissed off, Vinnie checked in. Assuming Sonny was playing a bait-and-switch game, Vinnie got a list of other hotels in the area, and the address of Sonny's brother, Dom. He didn't want to call there—anybody looking for Dom's dead brother was going to be viewed with potentially dangerous suspicion—but if he didn't find Sonny at any of these hotels, he was going to check it out.

When he got to his room, Vinnie started making calls. _I should've been smarter than this. Sonny staying at the Holiday Inn Palermo? That'll be the day._

He was at a beautiful old hotel, the kind the tour books directed you to if you wanted to see the "real" city. The hotel operator offered to ring Vinnie through to Sonny's room, but Vinnie asked for his room number instead.

Over at the hotel, Vinnie asked if Sonny was in, found that he was, thanked the clerk and left the lobby. Then he took up a spot across the street to watch for him to come out.

It didn't take long. Sonny could pointlessly hang around a hotel room if Vinnie was there with him to—do whatever it was he did, absorb his excess nervous energy, amuse him, if only by being an irritant, something like that. But without him, Sonny needed to get out and work off some of that energy.

It was just what Vinnie had been waiting for.

He went into the hotel, through the lobby, and up to Sonny's room. He didn't have any lock-picking tools, but the lock was hardly state-of-the-art. His credit card did the job nicely.

Once he was inside Sonny's room, he called room service and ordered himself some lunch. While he was waiting, he checked out the room. Sonny's stuff was there, what there was of it—three new suits, half a dozen new shirts, socks, underwear, shoes. A new suitcase, shaving kit, toiletries. Two new pair of cufflinks. There was something very comforting about knowing that no matter what happened, Sonny was Sonny.

The room itself wasn't much; it was small and dark, like a mouse hole, but the big, spacious stone balcony more than made up for it.

Vinnie had brought one of his books with him, so he sat on Sonny's nice balcony on one of its two little wrought iron benches, and smoked and read, and did not think about what he was going to do when Sonny got there, although occasionally while he was turning a page, or lighting a cigarette, the idea of pushing Sonny off his nice balcony came to mind.

Sonny got back to his room around dinner time. He didn't look terribly surprised to see Vinnie sitting on the balcony.

"This is the most pathetic ambush I've ever seen." Sonny dropped his key on the table by the door. He didn't come any closer.

Vinnie didn't move from his chair. If he got up, he was going to smash Sonny in the face, and he really wanted to talk, he really wanted to put an end to this ritual blood-letting. He wanted to put the pieces together without first breaking them into smaller pieces. "You can come on in. I talked myself out of beating the crap out of you," he said conversationally. "It wasn't easy, but I had a few days to do it."

"Too bad," Sonny said. "I'd like to see you try." But he didn't come any closer. Vinnie knew Sonny wasn’t afraid of him beating the crap out of him. If he didn’t want to get close, it was because he was afraid of something else, and Vinnie was pretty sure he knew what. That was good.

Vinnie lit another cigarette. Sonny didn't seem inclined to say anything more, so Vinnie said, "I've been here since this afternoon, where've you been?"

"Out." It was an answer designed to annoy Vinnie.

"Oh, out. I go there all the time. You go visit your brother?"

"What the fuck would I want to visit him for?" Sonny was looking at him like he was an idiot.

Vinnie didn't answer, just looked at him with dissatisfaction at his answer.

"We weren't close before Lorenzo died," Sonny added. "We're sure not close now. I didn't come here to see him."

"Why did you come here?"

Sonny shrugged. "Felt like a change of scene. What're you doing here?"

"I wanted talk to you."

"That's it? You came all this way, broke into my room, to talk? You might'a heard, there's this thing called the telephone—"

"Oh, yeah, I could have called you right up, and when you wanted to end the conversation, you'd'a just hung up and checked out. I didn't think too much of that plan. Now, why don't you come out here and sit down? Unless you think we should punch each other for a while, see if we can get thrown out of your nice hotel room."

Sonny smiled, and came a little farther into the room. "You had dinner yet?"

"No."

"C'm'on, I found a good place."

Vinnie stubbed out his cigarette, stood up and put his book on the bench. "'Course you did."

It was a good place, and they sat there for a long time, eating slow course after slow course, in no hurry. They didn't talk, they chit-chatted about nothing, and Sonny was charming and amusing and a good time was had by all. Vinnie was pretty inebriated from all the wine, but he knew this was deliberate: there would be no talking tonight, but Sonny was going to be all over him.

Vinnie stumbled into the hotel room, Sonny behind him, steering him a little, making sure he actually walked through the doorway rather than into the doorjamb. The door closed behind them. Sonny didn't turn on the lights, he just pushed Vinnie towards the bed, which Vinnie sort of tripped against, then fell on. He rolled over on his back to watch Sonny undress, unbuttoning his own shirt to very little effect, except where he managed to tear off a couple off buttons. He got his shoes off, though, and his slacks unzipped, and after that Sonny helped because it was dark and he was drunk and they were in a foreign country, and probably for some other reasons Vinnie couldn't come up with, but whatever they were, this didn't count, this wasn't Sonny undressing him to have sex with him, no siree.

But of course once he was undressed, Sonny kissed him—though he'd been kissing him the whole time he was helping him undress, but this was different. Sonny meant business.

And Sonny was all over him, his hands all over Vinnie, his mouth on Vinnie's mouth, his dick—

It was a good thing this didn't count.

When Vinnie woke up in the morning, Sonny was getting dressed.

"Should I make a plane reservation for the Antarctic this time? Darkest Africa? The Australian Outback?"

Sonny looked at him, smiling, not saying anything.

"You've ditched me twice now. You might've heard the expression 'three strikes, you're out'? Three strikes, I'm gonna get the message, OK?"

Sonny was still smiling at him, that fucking 'I own the world" smile that sometimes made Vinnie want to punch him 'til blood poured out of his ears. "You want me to bring you back breakfast?"

Vinnie turned down the offer of breakfast and went to the bathroom to wash the smell of Sonny off him. What the hell was he doing, anyway? He hadn't hit Sonny once.

Sonny came back a couple of hours later and asked him if he wanted to do some sight-seeing, and Vinnie said yes. He didn't, particularly, but it was better than reading John Grisham alone in a hotel room, even if it was on a pretty balcony.

And again Sonny was Mr. Charm. He practically sparkled with charisma and fun and all good things, and Vinnie's mood swung between enjoying himself and wanting to tell Sonny to knock it off. He finally settled on enjoying himself, deciding it was childish not to let himself have fun just because Sonny wanted him to for his own reasons of distraction.

There was only one unpleasant moment, when Vinnie asked about Dom again.

"You want to meet my brother?" Sonny asked the question the way you ask a guy if he's sure he wants to get into a fight where he's seriously over-matched.

If it wasn't a loaded question, Vinnie had never heard one. He wasn't sure how to answer it, but he didn't have to.

"Sure, let's go see Dom. He hung up on me when I told him about Lorenzo, he hasn't spoken to me since, **he thinks I’m dead,** but let's go see him. Who'm I gonna tell him **you** are, anyway? You got some weird need to have my brother call you a fag? 'Cause it's something I think I could live without."

Vinnie didn't say anything more about it.

They stayed out all day, with a long lunch and an even longer dinner punctuating the day. Sonny ordered wine with dinner again, but this time Vinnie barely touched his, and the bottle was still half-full when dessert came. He wasn't getting tight again because tonight they were going to talk.

Sonny was singing as he let them into the room, but he wasn't drunk, he was just—Sonny. "You have a good time today?"

"Yeah, it was fun," Vinnie said. Again Sonny didn't turn on any lights, but Vinnie wasn't getting undressed. They weren't going to fall into bed, they were going to talk. "I'm going to sit on the balcony for a while." He smiled at Sonny's sharp, annoyed look. "Care to join me?"

"Pretty late," Sonny said. Again he stayed by the door, as though he didn't want to come out on the balcony with Vinnie. And he did it for the same reason as before: he wanted to touch Vinnie, and that uncontrollable need put him at a disadvantage.

"Yeah, but I thought we could talk a little. You want a smoke?" He took out his cigarettes—Camels this time, lit one, and put the pack down next to him on the bench.

"You want to have a heart-to-heart in the middle of the night?"

"You disappeared in the middle of the night," Vinnie said, thinking he should keep his mouth shut, that he was only going to start something. Except that he wanted to start something, he really, really wanted to start something, and he was tired of keeping his mouth shut. He'd stopped being that guy who kept his mouth shut. "We can talk in the middle of the night, too."

"Yeah? What do you think you could possibly have to say that I want to hear?"

"Huh-uh, I’m not here because I have something to say to you. You’re the one’s gonna do the talking."

"Oh, really? I got nothin’ to say to you." Sonny was trying to pick a fight because that would derail this, and Vinnie wondered what he was so afraid of.

"Yeah?" Vinnie asked, not yelling at him. "I think you do. You knew damn well I was going to follow you."

Sonny shrugged, not saying anything.

"Why’d you take me to New York?"

Sonny leaned against the door, still not saying anything.

Vinnie put his cigarette in the ashtray, then went back into the room, closing the distance between them until Sonny was close enough to touch. Punching him wasn’t going to do any good, but he had Sonny pinned. There was no graceful way for Sonny to get away from him, but Vinnie could still get closer. "You wanna know something? You drive me crazy. If you hadn’t made a move on me, I would've gone to you, you know that? Even if you popped me for it, I'd'a gone to you. I couldn't've stayed away." He didn't know why he said it, he wasn't sure it was true, or that it even made sense. He moved a little closer. Sonny was eyeing him, waiting for him to do something. "I thought you wanted me to find you, was I wrong about that?"

Sonny gave him a smile. "You did pretty good. Credit card trail?"

"Yeah." Again Vinnie moved closer; Sonny was now near enough to kiss. He put his hand on Sonny’s arm. "Now, are you coming out to sit with me on your pretty balcony, or do I have to drag you?" He didn't know why he liked the balcony so much, except that he felt less confined there.

"At least you've learned to appreciate a good view," Sonny muttered, going with him without protest. "Why're we doing this in the middle of the night?"

Vinnie sat back down on his bench. "Sonny, you're not asleep. I'm not asleep. What difference does the middle of the night make?"

Sonny picked up Vinnie's cigarettes, but he didn't sit down. Instead he took the pack and leaned against the stone balustrade. "OK, what do you want me to say?"

"Why did you take me to New York? Why hand me back over to Frank?"

Sonny shrugged. "What’d you want me to do with you? You want to turn on some lights?"

"No, the view’s better with the lights off. And what do you mean, what did I want you to do with me? Why did you have to do anything?"

Sonny sighed. "Yeah, maybe the dark is better." But that was all he said.

Vinnie’s cigarette had burned most of the way down. He stubbed it out, got up, and took the pack from Sonny. He could wait as long as it took.

Finally Sonny came over and took the cigarettes back from Vinnie. After he’d lit one and taken a drag, he dropped the pack back on the bench next to Vinnie. "You were unhappy."

Vinnie watched him for a few minutes, but it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything more. "I was unhappy?"

Sonny shrugged. "Weren’t you?"

Vinnie thought about it. "I was depressed," he agreed.

"Unhappy, depressed, whatever you want to call it."

"So you took me back to New York?"

Sonny turned away from him, leaning his elbows on the stone balustrade. "I called McPike and set things up with him, then I took you back to him. You kept saying you wanted to see him. You didn’t seem to be able to find the airport by yourself, so I took you. There was no guarantee you could find McPike by yourself, so I took you to where he could find you. I don’t know what you’re upset about."

He wasn’t upset, Sonny was, but Vinnie didn't point that out. "But what was the precipitating factor?"

Vinnie knew Sonny had rolled his eyes at that one, but he was smiling, too; it showed in his voice. "Precipitating factor?" he repeated. "Yeah, you mean like nearly driving us off the road because you didn’t like the music I was playing?"

"If that was the reason you took me to Frank, that was one helluva delayed reaction."

"I figured you hated moving around," Sonny said. That sounded like the beginning of something, but he didn’t say anything more.

"I did," Vinnie said. "So did you."

"Yeah, but we stopped moving and you didn’t get any happier." Sonny turned around and looked at him. "What was I supposed to do?"

 _I was unhappy. I was unhappy, and Sonny didn’t know what to do about it. And if I was unhappy, he had to do something._ Vinnie was feeling something, he knew he was, but he couldn’t let himself or he’d derail this whole thing, and if that happened, the best they could hope for would be ending up right back where they started. "Why Frank?" Vinnie asked, his voice soft and careful.

Sonny closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Then he opened them, looked at his burning cigarette, and stubbed it out. "Hey, I knew he’d take you back to Aiuppo, but if somebody was gonna lock you up someplace, it wasn’t gonna be me. Anyway, even if I wanted to, what would I have told ‘em? Who was I gonna tell ‘em you were, I was, what was going on? ‘I don’t think he ever got over being kidnapped and taken to El Salvador?’" Sonny laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. "Yeah, and then they’d’a locked me up. And then where would you’ve been?"

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, you knew Frank would take me back to Rudy?"

Sonny just shook his head.

"No, seriously. Pretend—pretend I just got here and I don’t know anything."

"OK, what do you wanna know?"

"Why would Frank give me back to Rudy?" Vinnie wanted to add that he’d really like it if they could quit talking about him like he was a piece of stolen property, but that would just get them off-track.

"Because that’s the way the power flows," Sonny said. "If it was the other way around, Aiuppo would’ve told McPike he got you back. And he wouldn’t’ve been planning on getting McPike to do his wet work."

"Rudy was planning on having Frank kill someone?" Vinnie asked carefully. Laughing at that moment would be a very, very bad thing.

But Sonny laughed. "I told you that."

"You told me that when?"

"Before we split your place. Aiuppo was talking about calling McPike to dust me."

 _Don’t laugh. Laughing would be bad. Don’t laugh._ But he was going to, and there was nothing he could do about it. "Right back," Vinnie gasped, and hurried to the bathroom, where he slammed the door, turned on the taps, and burst out laughing. _Frank killing Sonny—and under Rudy's orders! I always knew Sonny's mind was a weird place, but where in the hell did he get this from?_ He was still laughing, but he was also giving that serious thought. _Sonny said he overheard Rudy talking about calling Frank to—what? Sonny said dust him, but Rudy knows Frank wouldn't do that. What did he really say?_

The answer came, obvious, familiar, hilarious. _He told Pooch he'd have Frank get rid of Sonny! This is simply a misunderstanding of the Merrick variety, all those years of talking in code just in case the place is bugged, nobody says kill. So what happens if you say 'get rid of' and all you mean is 'get him outta here'? Simple: your new deputy brings you Bobby, in an urn._

Sonny knocked on the door. "You all right in there?"

"Yeah, yeah, just a minute." He still wanted to laugh, and he still didn't want to laugh in Sonny's face, not because it would hurt his feelings, but—

 _But because you're still acting like Mr. Don't Offend Anybody. Fuck that._ Vinnie opened the door.

Sonny was scrutinizing him and Vinnie knew why: he'd used to do this when he felt like crying, lock himself in the bathroom and turn on the water so Sonny couldn't hear, as though Sonny wouldn't be able to tell when he came out. Vinnie refused to let those memories destroy his good mood. "I'm fine, I just—" And when he thought about Frank as Rudy's hired gun, Vinnie started laughing again.

Sonny looked at him as though he'd never seen him do that before. "Sure you're fine. You lock yourself in the john to laugh now."

Vinnie walked past him, back to the balcony, and Sonny followed. "Rudy wasn’t going to have Frank kill you," Vinnie said. "Frank doesn’t go around killing people, no matter how he feels about them."

"Sid Royce," Sonny said.

"Frank didn’t shoot Sid for personal reasons! He shot him because Sid went around the bend and was holding Frank’s wife at gunpoint!"

Sonny didn’t look convinced.

"And Rudy knows that perfectly well. When he said he'd have Frank get rid of you, he probably mean he'd have him threaten to arrest you if you didn't disappear." Sonny was still looking skeptical, and Vinnie started to say something else. Instead he took out a fresh cigarette and lit it. "You know what? Fine, you just believe what you want to believe." _I gotta stop fighting unwinnable battles. I'll never convince Sonny he’s wrong about this, but so what? I got my answer. He took me to New York because he was worried about me, and he figured Frank and Rudy could do a better job with me than he could._ Again whatever he was feeling threatened to rise to the surface, but Vinnie damped it down. "None of that's important."

"Great, so you got all the answers you want?"

"Yeah, I do. And now there's a couple things I gotta tell you."

Sonny gave him a wary look and came close to him, holding out his hand for the cigarette pack again. "Yeah?" He took out a cigarette and tapped it on the table. "Shoot."

Vinnie picked up his lighter, and when Sonny put the cigarette in his mouth, lit it for him. "I want to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?" Sonny sounded suspicious, and why shouldn't he? When was the last time Vinnie had thanked him for anything?

"For forcing me to see Frank—"

"Can we just— You got any idea how much I don't care about **Frank**?"

"Sonny, I got every idea how much you don't care about Frank. This isn't about Frank."

"Well, whatever it's about, will you get to it already? You know whatever it is you want, I'm gonna do it, so just get on with it."

 _Damn, damn._ Vinnie wanted to walk over and touch him, but instead he said, "You were right, I wasn't getting any better. I knew it didn't matter how many people told Frank that I was probably dead, he wouldn't stop looking for me, he wouldn't get on with his life, unless they showed him a body. I knew that, and I knew the only thing I could do to help was to see him and talk to him. And I couldn't do that without risking him finding out about you, and I couldn't do that. So I want to thank you for doing it for me. You were right about what I needed, only not so permanently." He wanted to touch Sonny, to give him something more than words—but that, too, would probably derail things. "I got something I want you to see."

Sonny didn't look at him. He wasn't smoking, either, he was just holding his cigarette.

Vinnie took his keys out of his pocket and slid one of the keys off his keychain. "I want you to see this." He held it up so Sonny could see it.

Sonny looked at the little key. "Very nice. What is it?"

"It's the key to my safety deposit box."

Sonny half-laughed. "What the hell do I want to see your safety deposit box key for?"

"It's not the key I want to show you, it's what's in it, but I didn't bring that with me. I know you know about the money Rudy sent me, but there's more in there." Vinnie paused, hoping Sonny would say something.

And finally he did. "Yeah? So?"

"You remember when I told you about working for Mel and Susan Profitt?" Sonny didn't answer, but he was looking at Vinnie anyway, even if his expression was clearly saying, yeah, get on with it. "Well, the guy that hired me, Roger Lococco, was working undercover for the CIA."

"Sounds like being paranoid didn't help ol' Mel too much, between his organization being infiltrated from all sides and you banging his sister."

That startled Vinnie. He'd never told Sonny about him and Susan. Sonny must have intuited it, which shouldn't have surprised him. _He pays attention to you, you idiot, stop forgetting that!_

"Yeah, well, eventually he cracked completely. He'd been in a tailspin since before I met him—Roger told me he had a lot of depressions, times when he couldn't even get out of bed in the morning—"

"Sounds like you learned a lot, working for him." It was a jab, but his tone softened it.

Vinnie ignored it. "I don't know what finally pushed him over the edge, but eventually he talked Susan into giving him an O.D. and then a Viking funeral."

That seemed to catch Sonny's interest. "You mean with the boat on fire and the dog and everything?"

"I don't think there was a dog, but yeah, she set the boat on fire herself."

"OK, that's a whole lot more interesting than the little key. You should'a started with that." Vinnie could see Sonny smiling.

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that. Anyway, everything was falling apart. Susan was losing her mind, and the reason Roger was there—he was supposed to be talking Mel into financing a coup—"

Sonny made a "hurry it up" gesture with his hand. "In Isle Pavot, yeah, so what?"

Again Vinnie was startled—baffled for a moment, then he got it—it had, after all, been on TV, and more importantly, in the papers. "You got a bus to catch or something? What's the big hurry?"

"I'm tired of all this," Sonny said. "You got more to say?"

"Yeah, a little. Roger gave me two million dollars." If he couldn't front-load the explanation, he might as well dive right into the good stuff. That kind of money, Sonny would probably insist on an explanation.

"I thought **Roger** was dead." Finally, Sonny seemed genuinely interested in his story. Vinnie noticed that Sonny said Roger's name exactly the same way he always said Frank's. Vinnie didn't smile, but he wanted to.

"He is. He gave it to me before he died. He'd skimmed it from Mel—skimmed a lot more than that, but he gave me the two million as a parachute, in case I ever got backed into a corner the way he had. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to use his. I suppose it got burned up in the boat with him."

Sonny came over and took the key out of his hand. "And you want me to see your two million dollars?"

"Yeah, I want you to see my two million dollars."

"Why?"

"You want to know why I came back to you? Why I followed you to Rome, why I followed you here. You gave me a grand so I wouldn't have to come back if I didn't want to, but I had this money hidden in the back of my closet at home. I hadn't even thought about it in years." No need to bring Frank and Jenny into this, certainly no need to mention Roger's visit. "I probably would have remembered it sooner, if we'd needed money."

"Anybody else told me they had two million dollars at the back of their closet and they forgot about it, I wouldn't believe them." Sonny dropped the key back into Vinnie's hand.

"And I probably would have remembered it if I'd wanted to ditch you and take off on my own."

"What're you still doing with it, anyway?" Sonny asked. "Aren't you supposed to turn in all the money you steal?"

Vinnie had known Sonny was likely to throw barbs at him, and that all he could do was ignore them. "Yeah, but the way I saw it, if I turned it in, I'd just be handing it over to the same people who'd had my friend killed. I couldn't do it. But I didn't know what else to do with it, either. So it just sat in my closet until I was back East and thinking about coming home."

"Good deal Aiuppo hadn't sold the house already," Sonny said, still in that places-to-go, people-to-see tone. For a second Vinnie wondered if Rudy maybe had sold the house already. Maybe he should have asked while they were drinking tea together.

He shrugged. It wasn't as though Rudy would have told Sonny if he had sold the house. "That's not important. The money's not important. My first thought was I was gonna give it to you, but that kind'a misses the point."

"There's a point to this?" Sonny asked.

"Yeah, and it's that I don't have to be here. I'm not here because I've got no place to go—hell, Sonny, we spent three years going no place. With this money, I could'a done that alone if I wanted to. I'm here because I want to be."

Sonny didn't say anything, but his silence felt . . . quieter, somehow. It might be better, but it also felt strange. Sonny being still and quiet was unnatural.

Vinnie let it sit, not saying anything for a while. Sonny was looking off the balcony toward the lights.

"You remember the last time we did this?" Sonny asked, surprising Vinnie.

"Sat in the dark just talking?" Sonny nodded. "Yeah, it was a couple nights before your bachelor party." Vinnie knew he wasn't talking about their recent past.

"Yeah."

Vinnie wondered what he was thinking, but he didn't ask. That had been a nice night, except that Vinnie kept thinking about how soon Sonny was going to find out the truth about him. He could never have predicted what really happened.

Sonny yawned, but he didn't say anything about being tired.

Vinnie asked him, "You know what I was thinking about, that night?"

Sonny shook his head. "Huh-uh."

"This dream I kept having, where you'd wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me to get dressed, we were going to run away."

Sonny looked at him, laughing in surprise. "Run away where?"

Vinnie shrugged. "I dunno. It made sense in the dream. I thought I knew what was coming, an'— I wasn't looking forward to you hating me for the rest of your life."

Sonny came over and picked up the cigarette pack, but instead of taking one out, he tossed the pack over the side of the balcony.

"You could've just put them on the table," Vinnie said mildly, knowing Sonny's been aiming at the table and had overshot.

"You need to cut back," Sonny answered, as though that's why he'd done it.

"Oh, yeah, right."

Sonny sat down next to Vinnie, nudging him over with his hip to make room. The bench was just big enough for two people, if they didn't mind sitting very close to each other. Sonny ran his hand backwards through Vinnie's hair. "I never hated you."

"Oh, come on," Vinnie started, and Sonny pulled his hair.

"Hey. I wanted to kill you there for a while, but I never hated you." His gaze drifted back to the view.

 _Oh. Oh, God._ "Sonny. You asked me one time if I was a fag. You remember that?"

Sonny looked away from the view, frowning at him. "Yeah, I remember that. So what?" Clearly the statute of limitations for taking offense were long up, so whatever Vinnie was going for, he wasn't getting an apology.

"You wanna call me a fag, well, I guess you can." 

"What's the matter with you?" Sonny asked. He sounded disgusted and annoyed. "I don't want to call you anything."

"I know," Vinnie said, "I know that, but Sonny—listen. If I'm a fag because I want to sleep in your bed with you, then yeah, I'm a fag."

"Will you quit saying that?"

"If I'm a fag because I—"

"You watch too much daytime TV," Sonny interrupted.

"What? I'm a fag because I watch too much daytime TV?"

Sonny laughed. "No! And quit saying that! No, one thing’s got nothin’ to do with the other, you just— You got this idea you gotta talk about everything, and I don't where else you could'a gotten it, because I know you were brought up better'n this. And I'm pretty sure the people you worked for didn't want you spilling your guts about everything, so where'd it come from?"

It had never occurred to Vinnie to wonder why he wanted them to be able to be open and honest about their relationship. Wasn't that what they were supposed to do? "I don't know. Therapy, probably. They made me go after you . . . ." Vinnie still hated saying the words, but he never had to; Sonny always got the point.

"Oh, yeah?" And as always, Sonny wasn't exactly unhappy to hear that Vinnie had been really fucked up by his "death."

"Yeah. After every case, they debrief you, so first you have to talk about it all, only it's all business. Nobody cares how you feel about it. In fact, you're not supposed to feel anything at all. And if they think you do, they make you go to group therapy."

"How many times you have to do that?" Sonny asked.

"Just once." Sonny laughed, and Vinnie elbowed him. "Shut up. Later on, Amber an' me went to a counselor, but that didn't work out too well."

"What happened?"

"Uh. Well, we broke up after the first session."

Sonny started laughing. "But you still think talking about everything is the solution to everything!"

Vinnie hadn't realized how it was going to sound until the words came out. "Hey! It was more complicated than that!"

"Oh, yeah?" Sonny nudged him. "So give."

"Sonny, it's a long story."

"So? You're not asleep. I'm not asleep. Or are we only talking about what you want to?"

 _How'd I manage to get myself into this?_ "What can I tell you? We— I dunno. We really liked each other, and maybe it was love, but except for the sex, we weren't compatible at all. So after a while it was all fighting and fucking, and we just weren't getting anywhere." Vinnie deliberately didn't look at Sonny. The similarities were disturbingly obvious, but maybe Sonny wouldn't notice. He snuck a glance at Sonny.

Sonny was frowning at him. "I don't know what that means, you weren't getting anywhere. It wasn't a hike through the Amazon. Where were you supposed to be getting?"

Vinnie thought about it for a minute. "I dunno. Married, I guess. We were engaged."

Sonny was exasperated. "You wanna get married, you set the date, call the priest, and send out invitations! What was the problem?"

"She was unhappy all the time and I couldn't figure out what to do about it." Again there were similarities that Vinnie really hoped Sonny wouldn't notice—or at least wouldn't comment on. "There was all this crisis going on. Rudy got shot . . . . I don't gotta tell you how crazy things get when something like that happens."

"Yeah, so?"

"You know the kind of turmoil that comes after something like that, plus me working both sides—" Vinnie shrugged. "It was hard on her. We couldn't go out— She just wasn't used to the life. She couldn't even understand it—again, with me working both sides, it was like playing two games of tennis at the same time. And even when it was all over and done with, it was like we forgot how to do anything together except fight and fuck."

"So what did the shrink say?" Sonny asked.

"She said we should quit having sex."

Sonny sort of laughed. "Yeah, sure, that was the only thing that was working. So you quit doing it, then you split up."

"Sort of. It was bound to happen, that just sped things up. I think that was the point." They were quiet for a few minutes while Vinnie tried to remember what detour they'd taken to get to this point. Talking about things, yeah, right. "There's a difference between two people talking about their life, and going to therapy. You do know that, right?"

"Of course I know that! But baby, there are things you just don't talk about, period. You know that—I know you know that, but you still keep talking about them. Why is that?"

"You want me to shut up?" Vinnie asked.

Sonny leaned against him. "You don't have to shut up, I just—I don't get why you want to talk about it. Explain that to me."

Vinnie thought about his circumspect conversation with Rudy, where they talked about Sonny without ever using his name. And how much like Rudy Sonny was. Looked at that way, Sony's unwillingness to talk about what was going on between them seemed absolutely right. And now that Vinnie's grasp on reality was stronger, now that he could see that it was Sonny's denial and not his own hallucinations, Sonny's acknowledgement of reality didn't seem so important. Reality was real whether Sonny admitted it or not. Still, maybe they could come to some kind of compromise. "It's not that I want to talk about it, it's that—" Vinnie rubbed his eyes. "Look. Any time you can't talk about something, that thing becomes—well, **unspeakable.** And I don't like feeling like that."

Sonny stood up and went back to the balustrade, leaning his elbows on it. "You feel unspeakable."

Vinnie really thought about it; he wanted to get this right. "Well, I've felt like your dirty little secret, and it's not a good feeling."

Sonny was nodding. "Yeah, OK. So who do you wanna tell?"

Vinnie wondered if Sonny was being deliberately dense or if he was really not getting it. "I don't— It's not that I wanna tell anybody. But it'd be nice if you'd quit acting like **you** don't know what's going on between us." He thought about how crazy it used to make him feel when Sonny did that, but there was no reason to mention it now. 

"What's going on," Sonny repeated. It didn't sound like a question, but if it wasn't, Vinnie didn't know why he'd said it. He moved a little further down the balustrade, away from Vinnie.

"Yeah," Vinnie said. "What's going on. Between you an' me." Vinnie wanted to elaborate on what was going on between them, only for some reason he was embarrassed. _This is great! What'm I doing, fighting for my right to do something I don't wanna do?_ Maybe he was, but that wasn't the point. Vinnie got up and went over to stand next to Sonny. "I sleep in your bed every night," Vinnie said quietly, as though to keep anyone from overhearing. Sonny gave him a quick look, then returned his attention to the view. "You have your tongue in my mouth every night—"

"What's your point?" Sonny asked. Vinnie couldn't be sure, but he thought Sonny was blushing.

"My point is, in the morning, you act like nothing happened. That's annoying at best."

"So what do you want?" Sonny asked.

Vinnie thought about it. "I don't know."

"You don't know!" Sonny threw up his hands and walked away. He stopped at the other end of the balcony and looked over the edge, then he looked back at Vinnie for a moment. Vinnie knew he was going to do something, but—

Vinnie's Italian wasn't good enough for him to get exactly what Sonny yelled off the balcony, but it definitely wasn't a chorus of _I Love You Truly._ He was pretty sure reference was made to what Vinnie could do—and had done—with his tongue.

Vinnie hurried over and gave him a shove. "Will you cut it out? You're gonna get us kicked outta here."

Sonny shrugged. "Who cares? The place's a dump anyway. They were probably all tourists, you think I should translate?"

Vinnie put his face in his hands. "Do I really gotta tell you that yelling stuff at strangers wasn't what I had in mind when I said talk about stuff?"

Sonny turned and leaned his back against the balustrade. "OK, so talk."

And that was when Vinnie saw the flaw in what he was asking for. There was something they were supposed to say to each other, but those three words were ones Vinnie never wanted to hear Sonny say to him again—and if Vinnie said them, Sonny would, too; he'd have to. But if Vinnie didn't say them, what the hell was he supposed to say?

Sonny was shaking his head, laughing at him. He turned to Vinnie and started feeling his pockets.

"You threw them off the balcony," Vinnie said.

"Oh. Yeah."

 _What if I do say it? What's going to happen? "Yeah, I love you too, man," and then he's gonna throw himself off the balcony? They aren't some kind of curse, they're just words._ "I love you," Vinnie said.

"Yeah? You want me to throw your lighter over now?" Sonny was still laughing at him.

Vinnie took it out and put it in Sonny's hand. "Hey, if you wanna buy me a new one, sure, go for it."

Sonny threw Vinnie's lighter up in the air, but then he caught it. "I was thinking we should go someplace else." The lighter sparkled in the air, came back down into Sonny's outstretched hand. "Or we could go home.”

Vinnie shrugged. "I'm in no hurry to go home."

"You sure? You don't miss the tacky orange bridge?" Sonny asked.

"You think it's tacky?" Vinnie asked. "The whole rest of the world thinks it's gorgeous."

"Gorgeous," Sonny repeated. He tossed the lighter again. "Do you think it's gorgeous?"

Vinnie thought about it, as though it was really important how he felt about the Golden Gate Bridge. "It's kind'a pretty," he said. He didn't have any strong feelings about the orange bridge, and there was no reason for him to pretend he did.

"Yeah, that's why they paint it orange, because it's so gorgeous. Not that you can blame 'em for that, it's all they got, just that one big orange bridge."

Vinnie considered reminding Sonny that the Golden Gate was not the only bridge in San Francisco—that was like saying the only bridge New York had was the Brooklyn Bridge. But it wouldn't matter because that wasn't Sonny's point. To his dying day, Sonny would always believe that everyone who wasn't on the East Coast wished they were, was envious of all it—particularly New York—had to offer, and if they weren't, they were idiots.

"I don't miss the orange bridge," Vinnie said.

"Good, we'll leave tomorrow. Where do you want to go?"

Vinnie started to say that wherever Sonny wanted to go was fine with him; then he remembered he wasn't that guy anymore. He had opinions; there were things he wanted. "Venice," he said. "I wanna see Venice. Oh, and we really ought'a go to San Donato Val di Comino"

"San Donato Val di Comino?" Sonny asked. "What's there?"

Vinnie grinned at him. "Nothing. But if we're gonna come all this way and not see your family, we can't not see my family, too." 

Sonny chuckled. "Yeah, that seems fair." He looked, Vinnie thought, unreasonably happy about this decision. "Great, so, I'll call for the tickets in the morning."

They stood and looked at the view for a while. Sonny leaning against Vinnie. Vinnie put his arm around Sonny, casually, but when Sonny pushed closer, Vinnie tightened his hold. "Hey. You think we could quit pretending I'm not sleeping in your bed?" Vinnie asked. But instead of waiting for Sonny to answer, Vinnie kissed him.

The kiss—which was really a whole lot of kisses without much space between them—lasted a long time. Sonny's hands moved slowly over him, as though looking for all his secrets; looking, and finding nothing. It felt as intense as sex, as blind, and physical, and true, and it was an incredible relief.

Vinnie pushed Sonny against the balustrade and put his arms around him, and Sonny slid his hands into Vinnie's back pockets, which was one of his favorite things to do. Vinnie felt so comfortable, standing there with Sonny pressed against him, tongue in his mouth. Things seemed very right.

When they stopped kissing, Vinnie said again, "I love you."

Sonny nodded, looking at him, but not saying anything. He put Vinnie's lighter back in his hand. "Don't lose that." He kissed Vinnie again, sort of to punctuate his words.

 _Did we settle something? Anything?_ Vinnie couldn't tell. He felt better, but that didn't mean anything; he and Sonny had been having a good time. Vinnie dropped the lighter into his pocket. "Yeah, I'll try not to."


End file.
